High-security public servants caught rorting their overtime

Linton Besser

SENIOR staff in the federal Attorney-General's Department with high-level security clearances have been investigated internally for rorting their overtime claims and obtaining financial benefits by deception, according to internal government files.

The agency, which is responsible for law enforcement policy advice to the government, has used external consultants and internal auditors to examine a range of staff misconduct in the past three years.

In one case in June last year, an official who had worked on the Clarke inquiry into the Mohamed Haneef affair was found to have deliberately signed a false statutory declaration to cover up an overtime rort.

The bureaucrat's behaviour was found to be ''dishonest and lacking in integrity and may well amount to criminal conduct''. The investigation report recommended her contract be terminated.

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In all, between July 2009 and January 2010, the department investigated one case of theft, which involved $28,000 worth of smartphones and computer monitors, and 29 cases of ''obtaining a financial advantage or any other benefit by deception''.

The details have emerged from confidential departmental documents that form part of a Herald investigation into corruption in the government.

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In states such as Queensland, Western Australia and NSW, such cases might have merited an independent investigation by an anti-corruption watchdog. But in Canberra neither major party has voiced support for a Greens bill to introduce such an agency.

Craig Harris, a spokesman for the Attorney-General's Department, said 11 employees had been investigated since 2008. Findings were made against 10. In one case, the "investigation was discontinued after the employee resigned".

A consultant's report in November 2009 found against an official who worked in an area of the department that has access to ''sensitive material, of both a private personal and confidential government nature'' and had a ''high-level security clearance (at the secret level)''.

The official had claimed payment for overtime he did not work, misused a Commonwealth leased vehicle on multiple occasions and ''discredited some of his work colleagues''. The report said his employment should be ended ''if trust [in him] is irreversibly destroyed'', or that he be demoted to a position not requiring a security clearance.

An investigation in March 2010 into $9700 in deliberate overpayments resulted in a recommendations that the official be subject to ''a higher level of sanction'', which the report said could include the official being fired, or ''a reduction in classification''.

Another employee with a security clearance was found to have acted without integrity a month later for the same offence. Mr Harris said all

department officers were expected to abide by the code of conduct.

He said the agency used ''a number of strategies, including training at induction, refresher training, and internal information campaigns to ensure employees are constantly aware of their [ethical] obligations".

In April last year an investigation was conducted into allegations that a catering supplier to the department was also supplying a departmental official with cut-price Christmas food.

The person who lodged the complaint claimed the management group in this area of the department had a culture of corruption and that this incident was just ''the tip of the iceberg'', the investigation file said.

Inquiries failed to substantiate the wider allegations but the report found it was possible the circumstances created an apparent conflict of interest that could become a matter of dispute ''in any coming evaluation of tenders''.

In August last year, a former staff member in the Attorney-General's Department, Keiran Temple, was given a suspended sentence in the ACT Magistrates Court for fraud, after he was involved in the theft of smartphones and laptops from the department.

Temple told the court several other employees were involved, including more senior personnel. The internal file said his five-month sentence was suspended ''for his guilty pleas and his willingness to help police investigate what Mr Temple believed was a culture of dishonesty within AGD''.

The human services section of the department put a note on the file that it was ''not aware of any other code of conduct cases with respect to general theft or dishonesty or any other matters identified which could have resulted in such action''.